


Where Walks the Sun

by starbirdrampant (ineasako22)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Ahsoka lives?, F/M, Gen, planet of mortis, throwbacks to the clone wars, weird Force stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-23 08:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12503632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineasako22/pseuds/starbirdrampant
Summary: When Rex receives a strange transmission at Yavin, Ezra gets it into his head to go after it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [comehomelove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comehomelove/gifts).



> Written for [comehomelove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comehomelove/pseuds/comehomelove) for the SWWA Gift Exchange (2017)

Yavin 4 _– Yavin System, Outer Rim Territories; one month after the Battle of Atollon_

“ _The battle at Atollon decimated a number of our forces, including the forces we had planned to send to Lothal,”_ the flickering hologram of Senator Mon Mothma said, her voice not unkind. “ _I am sorry, Lieutenant Bridger, but the Rebel Alliance must look to the wellbeing of the galaxy as a whole. Without intelligence that reveals an exploitable weakness or the personnel to stage an assault on the planet, there’s not much we can do.”_

Ezra stared at the blank, sympathetic faces in front of him, from General Dodonna’s downturned mustache to Admiral Akbar’s solemn regard, and fought the urge to throw something. “I… understand,” he said and bowed politely – _wouldn’t Kanan be so proud_ – before continuing. “If there’s the possibility of that changing…”

“Lothal will be kept in consideration,” General Dodonna assured him. “I more than anyone want to see the Empire pay for–

“But Lothal is not the only homeworld under Imperial occupation,” interjected Admiral Akbar. “Senator Mothma is correct. For now, Lothal cannot be our primary concern.”

Ezra gritted his teeth and smiled, though there was not much life in it. “Of course. If you’ll excuse me then, Senator, Admirals, Generals.”

Senator Mothma nodded. “You are dismissed, Lieutenant Bridger.”

Ezra snapped a salute and barely stopped himself from stomping out of the meeting room. Rebel Command had a point, he _knew_ they had a point, it was just…

_It’s just not fair_ , he thought, and had to suppress a sour smile at the memory of a younger him saying that phrase a lot more than was valid. He stopped in a tucked-away corner of one of the long twisting corridors that ran the length of the old temple that was the Rebellion’s base on Yavin 4 and sighed, carefully letting his resentment leech into the Force like Kanan had taught him. A little bit still simmered in the back of his mind by the time he was done, but it quickly faded into all the other background emotions that welled up from a large group of people all shoved into a confined space.

He grumbled at that too, thinking longingly of his old tower on Lothal, the peace and quiet that went on for miles… but then a sense of fierce satisfaction swelled from the floors beneath him – probably an engineer that fixed a stubborn Y-wing – and Ezra caught himself almost smiling at the feeling.

_At least General Dodonna understands_ , he thought. _Though he was on Atollon, so he probably just wants to sucker-punch the Empire for that alone_. _Still, that’s something I can work with._

The mess was empty at that time of morning, with most of the engineers and pilots out in the hangar tending to their fighters and the off-shift workers sequestered into some bunk or another, getting as much sleep as they could before their next shift. So when Ezra saw Rex in the back corner, staring blankly at a plateful of rations, he was surprised enough to investigate.

Except Rex wasn’t staring at his plate at all, but at a datapad that lay on the table next to his tray. The datapad was playing a transmission that sounded like it was mostly static, but Rex seemed riveted, and worried.

“Hey Rex.”

“Hey kid,” Rex replied, scanning over the report that CommOps tacked onto every intercepted transmission. Before Ezra could even begin to read over his shoulder, Rex pushed the report over. “What do you make of that?”

Ezra scanned the ‘pad. “It mostly just looks like… gibberish. Did CommOps intercept some kid’s comm-unit project again?”

Rex shook his head. “The message is… unintelligible. That’s not what concerns me. What concerns me is the security codes that got transmitted with the message.” He met Ezra’s eyes. “They’re GAR codes, from the Clone Wars, and there aren’t a lot of people who’d know them.”

“Gar codes? Like–”

“Grand Army of the Republic. These ones are specific to Jedi only, which has me worried.”

“You mean… you think there’s more Jedi out there? Now?”

“Well that’s the thing, isn’t it?” Rex scowled down at the datapad. “You and Kanan haven’t exactly been subtle, have you? So why are there Jedi showing up _now_?”

“You think it’s a trap.”

Rex nodded. “If it wasn’t for the message, I’d assume the Imperials were revisiting old logs. But they’d put out a distress call, or coordinates, not static.”

“So what are we going to do about it?”

“Haven’t decided. But I can guarantee the Rebellion doesn’t have enough personnel to investigate. Not after Atollon.”

“We can’t just leave it!” Ezra sputtered. “Not if there’s even a–”

“Leave what?” Kanan’s voice was quiet, but his attention pressed against Ezra in the Force.

Rex and Ezra glanced at each other and Kanan stiffened before settling onto the bench beside Ezra.

“Leave what?” he asked again, his voice intent.

“CommOps found a transmission flagged with old Jedi security codes,” Rex said. “The codes are from the Clone Wars, but… the transmission is recent.”

“Are we sure it’s not a trap?”

Rex shook his head. “It’s likely.”

“Kanan,” Ezra frowned, “if it _is_ Jedi…

Kanan sighed, and Ezra could almost see his brows creasing under his mask. “I know. We can’t ignore it either.” He shook his head. “Hera’s not going to like this.”

/// \\\\\ /// \\\\\ /// \\\\\

“You want to do what?” Hera asked, pulling herself out from under the _Ghost_ ’s starboard altitude thrusters. “Are we even sure it’s not a trap?”

“It’s probably a trap,” Kanan said.

“It’s a _Jedi_ code,” Ezra blurted out at the same time. “What if… what if it’s Ahsoka.”

Silence fell from his words like a stone into a pond, rippling out from the group and bouncing against the surrounding noise of the hangar.

“Is it sanctioned?” Hera asked.

Ezra blinked. “Well, no, I don’t think so. It–”

“I’m sorry, Ezra, but if Command doesn’t sanction a mission, we can’t go.”

“But Rex said–”

Hera cut him off with a look before glancing at Rex.

“I took this to Command after I ran it through the encryption codes I remembered from the war.” Rex said. “They said that without more information, there’s not much they can do about it.”

“So it would be an unsanctioned mission then,” Hera said.

Ezra huffed. “Rex, you said that there couldn’t be a lot of people who knew those codes. Was Ahsoka one of them?”

Rex’s mouth twitched, but his voice was steady when he answered. “She was, but there’s no guarantee it’s her.”

“We don’t know it’s not!”

“Ezra,” Hera said, a warning lurking in her voice. “We have a duty to the Rebellion. Without sanction–”

“We have a duty to our friends too,” Ezra replied mulishly. “Or did you just want me to forget everything you taught me?”

Hera’s breath caught, mirrored a moment later by Kanan’s. “Ezra…”

“From what I remember of my frustrations with the Rebellion, and with your crew in particular, Captain Syndulla” Kallus said, settling down a crate of engine parts near where Hera had been working. “You’re not usually one to leave friends behind, even if there is a trap.”

Zeb set down his own crate, stacking it haphazardly next to Kallus’. “We’ve got word on Ahsoka?”

Hera’s mouth thinned, her lekku twisting uneasily. “Fine, family meeting, in the galley.” She dropped her tools next to the equipment cloth she’d been using and yanked off her goggles before stalking up the ramp. “You too, Kallus.”

Kallus blinked, but followed the rest of the _Ghost_ crew up the ramp.

Once in the galley, Hera whirled around. “Let me get this straight,” she asked Ezra. “You want us to fly an unsanctioned mission to a likely hostile position, just in case it’s Ahsoka?”

Ezra’s shoulders hunched. “I know it sounds crazy, I just… I have a feeling.”

Hera sighed. “Kanan?”

“I don’t think I’m feeling what Ezra is,” Kanan said. “But I agree there is… something. If we set this aside, we may miss something important.”

“Even if this is a trap,” Zeb said, looking up from where he was lounging against the galley wall. “If the Empire does have Ahsoka, then the Rebellion could have a fairly significant security problem pretty soon. She was heavily involved with a lot of high-level ops, right?”

“I was never told just how much she did,” Hera said slowly. “But I do know she was the point of contact for a number of rebel cells. If she _is_ compromised, then…”

“Then we have to go get her.” Ezra glanced at everyone before turning his gaze back to Hera. “We left her once. I don’t want to do it again.”

Hera looked around the galley. “So this is something you want to do then.”

Ezra nodded and Kanan placed his hand on his padawan’s shoulder. “This is likely a trap, but that doesn’t mean we should walk away.”

Zeb shifted. “We’ve gone farther for less.”

“... Alright.” Hera said. “Let’s get the _Ghost_ prepped.”

“You’re coming with us?” Ezra asked, hope shining in his eyes.

“Well I’m not letting you wander into an Imperial trap without me,” Hera replied. “So get everything prepped. We’ll have to move fast.”

Ezra let out a whoop and dashed out of the galley. Zeb and Kallus followed at a slower pace, and Hera caught Kallus’ arm before he could duck into the hallway.

“Kallus, would you come with us on this? I understand if you would be uncomfortable, but I believe you could help us plan for any Imperial reprisals.”

Kallus blinked, obviously pleased before he schooled his face to stillness. “I… appreciate your trust, Captain Syndulla. I would be honored.”

Hera nodded. “Rex would you help Kallus get some weapons? We’ll need to move quickly.”

“Understood,” Rex replied. He motioned for Kallus to proceed him, but hesitated at the doorway before turning back. “Thank you, Captain. If this really turns out to be the Commander…”

“I understand.” Hera smiled. “We’ll do what we can.”

Rex smiled back, a faint grin beneath his white beard, and followed Kallus out of the _Ghost_ , leaving only Kanan and Hera in the galley. Even with his mask on, she could feel the weight of his gaze on her.

“What, love?”

Kanan stepped closer and Hera shifted into him, letting herself lean into his embrace as his arms came up around her shoulders.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re not usually that short with Ezra.”

“Yes, I’m–” She bit her tongue, and sighed. “I’m just...tense. After Atollon…”

“You think Thrawn will find us again?”

“I hope not. But this transmission coming so soon after we’ve arrived here? It just seems suspicious to me.”

Kanan rested his forehead against hers. “To me as well, and to Rex. But Ezra isn’t wrong. If there is the possibility of another Jedi, we need to investigate, even if it turns out to be something like–” his breath caught “–like Master Unduli.”

She sighed and pressed closer, soothed by his familiar presence, even with the unfamiliar undertone of metal and leather that the mask added. “I know. I just have a bad feeling about this.”

“You and me both,” Kanan replied.

/// \\\\\ /// \\\\\ /// \\\\\

Ezra had almost finished yanking the last of the needed supplies into the _Ghost_ when he exited the cargo back one last time only to run into Wedge.

“Ezra, hey,” Wedge grinned, his pilot’s helmet tucked under his arm. “I heard there was a mission.”

“Mission? No mission. There’s no mission,” Ezra said, internally cursing the crack his voice made.

“There isn’t? Then why are you and Captain Syndulla prepping the _Ghost_.”

“We’re running a few errands, Wedge,” Hera said as she came down the ramp. “Nothing official, which is why there weren’t orders. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be in sickbay?”

“No ma’am.” Wedge replied, throwing a salute. “Hobbie and Yaan are still under observation, but I was let out yesterday. I’m ready to fly, ma’am. I even have a new A-wing prepped and ready to go,” he added as if afraid Hera would try to order him to stay grounded. “And… I heard about the transmission Captain Rex received today. If it’s true about the Jedi…”

“You can’t tell _anyone_ ,” Ezra blurted out. 

“But that’s just it, I want to help.” Wedge glanced between Hera and Ezra. “Besides, Captain Syndulla, you’re still Phoenix Squadron’s leader. They haven’t disbanded us yet.”

Hera was frowning, her lekku moving in the way that Ezra had slowly learned to realize was her saying she didn’t like the decisions she had to make. 

“Alright,” she said, finally. “Be ready to follow on our tail as close as you can. And keep in mind that this _isn’t_ sanctioned, Antilles. You may not like the consequences when we come back.”

Wedge nodded. “I understand.”

“Then help Ezra get the _Ghost_ prepped. I want to leave during the shift change.”


	2. Chapter 2

The leaving went off without a hitch, even with Wedge’s A-wing sliding out of one of the base’s less-used sally ports just in time to hug the _Ghost_ ’s underbelly before jumping into hyperspace. The atmosphere in the _Ghost_ was tense and excited all at once, between Ezra’s drive to get moving and Hera’s low anxiety about what exactly they managed to leave behind. 

But despite all the foreboding, the trip to the coordinates Rex managed to glean from the transmission vector was quiet, passing through a number of systems until they finally arrived at one lonely star with only a few asteroids for company. 

Ezra frowned as he ran the scan data, the “RESULT NEGATIVE” flashing in glaring mauve on the screen. This wasn’t right. A transmission didn’t just come from _nowhere_ , it–

“Rex, there’s nothing here,” Hera said into the comms, her voice rattling down the hallway from the galley speakers. “Not even your transmission.”

“No, there _has_ to be something here,” Ezra muttered, his fingers fluttering over the co-pilot’s console. But “RESULT NEGATIVE” came up again and again and again, until he could feel each flash of the mauve letters like a slap against the lightsaber scars on his face.

“Ezra” Kanan said, his hand coming to rest on Ezra’s shoulder. Calm flowed from the point of contact like cool water over a burn. He tilted his head at Hera. “You’re sure? We’re not just being jammed?”

Hera shook her head. “There’s nothing out here _to_ jam us. Even the star out here barely deserves the name.”

_There can’t be nothing here,_ Ezra thought, staring into the blackness as if the answers would suddenly materialize in the star patterns. Behind him, Zeb, Rex, and Kallus all wedged themselves into the cockpit behind Kanan, their _worry, suspicion, hope_ tangling together and pressing on Ezra’s senses like a pile of wet leaves.

Kanan’s hand tightened on Ezra’s shoulder, a quick squeeze that pushed back the press of emotions and cleared his mind just enough that–

“Ghost _, this is Phoenix Four, how copy?”_

“Clear copy, Wedge,” Hera replied. “Are you seeing anything out there?”

“ _Negative, Captain. I hoped your instruments might have better luck, ‘cause I’m seeing nothing out here._ ”

“Alright, come on back, Wedge. Looks like this is a bust.”

“ _Understood, Wedge out_.”

“What about the Force?” Rex asked, after the silence had stretched a second too long. His voice was oddly formal, with a reedy undertone of uncertainty, or perhaps desperation, that Ezra had never heard from him before. “I know it’s a long shot, but… Kanan, would you…?”

Kanan was already moving before Rex’s voice trailed off, his hand outstretched towards the empty space beyond the viewport. Ezra followed quickly thereafter, their joined strength probing the black, looking for anything that a ship’s scanners couldn’t detect.

There _was_ something there, Ezra realized, though the feeling was little more than a flicker at the edge of their senses, like a flash of light only seen out of the corner of an eye. The flicker danced around them at first, almost enticing them to follow like one of the big angler fish on Dac. Frustrated, Ezra pushed after it – _if he could just_ catch _it_ – but Kanan’s warnings – _caution_ – and the lurking sense of suspicious uncertainty pulled him back.

_Let it chase us_ , Kanan told him, with the shared thought of a plains Loth-cat tapping on a blade of grass to entice a mouse… So Ezra pushed forward and _past_ the flicker, like he’d lost the sense of it, and started shoving around in the Force, as if he were Zeb looking for the last meiloorun in a haapa fruit drawer.

He felt Kanan’s amusement, warm and crisply dry, swell behind him as his teacher started his own clumsy “searches,” until they were both like two toddlers patting their play area with sticky hands, trying to find a wooden block in plain view.

The flicker grew… annoyed almost, if flickers could even have feelings now. It certainly made itself more obvious, especially as Kanan and Ezra’s senses deliberately passed over what were, by now, very obvious hints even a youngling couldn’t ignore. But there was something else as well, as though the flicker was just the tip of a thunderstorm that, try as it might, couldn’t hide the rumbles of thunder and flash of lightning behind one little will-o-the-wisp.

A sinking feeling was coiling in Ezra’s stomach with every pass that “missed” catching the flicker, a feeling that only grew when the flicker became a flag became a beacon..Then the Force was roaring and whispering all at once, and Ezra was distantly aware of the _Ghost_ shaking like it was passing through rough atmosphere

_Except Hera would never let it get this bad, she’s the best pilot I know, she–_

Hera and Zeb were shouting, Rex was pulling at his shoulders, Kallus at Kanan’s– 

_Kanan, what’s going on? I feel sick._

_I don’t know, kid, but stay with me…. Ezra?_

_Kanan–_

_EZRA!_

/// \\\\\ /// \\\\\ /// \\\\\

Hera groaned, peeling her face off the _Ghost_ ’s console and wincing at the sharp sting of skin where the buttons had pressed angry, red lines. _How long have I been out?_ she asked herself, rubbing at the indented marks of the console buttons on her cheek. Her breath fogged in front of her, clouding the viewport and adding to the faint rim of ice that was creeping in from the edges of the transparisteel. _Wait, ice? The only way there’s ice is if–_

She jolted upright, hissing as stiff muscles protested and joints popped under the sudden strain. The lower viewport was completely fogged over, with the upper one trying gamely to follow. The _Ghost_ was silent, consoles and scanners dark, with the sickening twist of the emergency low gravity generator barely holding her to her seat. The co-pilot’s chair was empty and cold, and Hera’s heart dropped to her knees even as she restarted the ship’s systems before they froze to death.

The engines caught with no issue, without even the usual hiccup in the ignition sequence that happened after restarting from a hard wipe, and Hera let out the breath she’d been halfway holding as the consoles flickered to life and a breath of warm air wound its way around the cockpit. A quick check of their fuel stores showed plenty in reserve, so she cranked the heat and turned around to check on her crew.

Chopper was down, his manipulator arms slumped on either side of his head-dome, but a few quick button presses and his optic lights started shining again. Hera ignored the angry burblings that came from the grumpy astromech, busy as she was with finding Zeb’s pulse under the thin fur of his neck and slumping with relief as it beat warm and steady against her fingers.

“Zeb?” She shook his shoulder and leaned back. No response. “Zeb!”

He woke with a yell, swinging his big arms towards her face as she leaned back and under, neatly avoiding his clumsy, fatigued swipes. Thankfully, awareness hit him quickly, before Chopper had the chance to give him a shock.

“Hera?” If Zeb’s voice was gravel before, now it sounded like boulders hitting a mountainside. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Hera tamped down on the unpleasant thoughts that threatened to surge against her emotions. “We were caught in some kind of… pulse. It fried our systems.” She and Chopper hauled Zeb upwards, until the big Lasat could catch himself on the navigator’s chair. “I need your help getting systems restarted while I find Kanan and the others.”

“Wait, they’re gone? Where?”

Hera pressed her lips into her teeth, grimacing against the surge of frustration that followed Zeb’s words. “I don’t know. I need you to double check the guns while Chopper checks engines. If that pulse comes back, we need to be able to resist it somehow.” No response. “Zeb, I need you to–”

“Hera.” Zeb was looking out the viewport, and if Hera didn’t know better, she would have said he was afraid. “You need to look at this.”

The radio crackled to life. “–ost, Ghost, _do you copy. I repeat, do you copy? Come on, guys, answer the damn radio. This is Wedge. My engines are dead and I’m losing life support fast here, so any time you can come for a pick-up that’d be great–”_

“Wedge.” Hera’s fingers fumbled with the radio. “Wedge, we read you. What’s your status?”

“ _Hera, thank ancestors. I’m right off your starboard bow. ‘Fraid I clipped one of your airlocks a little bit, so you’re going to need to swing around and pick me up with the other one. That_ thing _came out of nowhere and–”_

“Wait, Wedge, what thing?”

“That thing,” Zeb replied, pointing towards the viewport. 

Hera turned.

The only word she had for it was ‘monolith.’ Ten, no, _twenty_ times larger than any star destroyer she’d ever seen, it was a hulking trapezoid that hung in space, silhouetted by the light of the system’s lonely star. As a gleam of light slid off one edge and threw the rest into shadow – broken only by the bright twinkle of stars behind it – Hera realized the monolith was slowly turning, much like a planet would, and there appeared to be no possible way of getting inside.

“Chopper,” she said faintly, still staring out the viewport. “Pull the _Ghost_ around to pick Wedge up, and see if we can’t get his A-wing working. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

/// \\\\\ /// \\\\\ /// \\\\\

The air tasted… dead. 

_Not_ like someone had died, that was something Ezra was far too familiar with, especially with all his time on Lothal after his parents were taken. No, this was something else. After all, ship-air had a taste. It was cool and metallic and sometimes tasted like the gritty dust from bad air filters, but it had a taste. Planets tasted like sun and dirt and the local climate and sometimes like too many people pressed into a too small space. This air was dead and flat and stuck to the back of Ezra’s throat like dust.

Grit crunched under his head as he shifted, little pinpricks of sensation that stabbed along his temple and into his hair, before sliding down to his neck and side. Groaning, Ezra turned onto his stomach, relishing in the faint dimming of the light before he staggered upwards. Rex and Kallus lay nearby, carefully picking themselves off the hard stone with all the grace and enthusiasm of hungover star-fighter pilots. Kanan was further away, and was lying still enough that Ezra felt a spike of worry, before he noticed Kanan’s hand searching carefully for his mask, wobbling only a few feet away.

They’d landed – if that was even the right word – in some kind of arena. High walls circled around them like cats, topped by crumbling towers and jagged slabs of stone. And beyond that, a spire loomed over everything, with eerily angled edges that drew the eye up and up and _up_ , culminating in might have been a perfect point if the top of the tower wasn’t shattered and twisted, splintering like an old broomstick against the sky.

The sky…

Ezra’s first thought was that night was falling, and whatever strange sun warmed this planet was fading into its usual orbital obscurity. Except there was no sun that he could see, and no sunset ever looked like this. 

Darkness streaked across the sky like blood spatter, reaching with greedy talons towards the glow of light on the opposite horizon. There was no gentle fading of light to dark, no soothing blues or greens to ease a planet gently into night. The darkness clawed at the light, and was burned in turn, leaving streaks of red and gray lancing in ragged lines between the two extremes, like infected scar tissue.

“Ezra?” Kanan asked behind him, and Ezra jumped, his hand falling to his lightsaber and nearly igniting it before the worried furrow of Kanan’s brow pulled him back to himself.

“Kanan.” Ezra sagged with relief. “Sorry, I just…” He waved a hand, even though his friend wouldn’t see it. “The sky… it’s…”

But Kanan nodded. “I know.”

“You do? You can… Can you see it?”

“No.” Kanan shook his head before settling the mask on over his eyes. “But I can feel it.”

“Feel it…” Ezra reached out to the Force in wary anticipation, only to flinch back as the Force _screamed_ at him, a wave of roiling chaos undercut by the cold, cold, _cold_ sensation of the Dark Side. “What–” he gasped as Kanan’s hands came up to steady him. “What was _that?_ ”

“It’s a Nexus,” Kanan replied, outwardly calm, though his voice shook if you knew where to listen. “I’d read about them back at the Temple, but I’d never thought I’d see one. This entire planet is steeped in the Force.”

“In the dark side, maybe.” Ezra said, carefully strengthening his shields. It left him feeling vaguely adrift and with a pounding headache by the time he’d finished, but it was better than… _that_.

Kanan turned his head unerringly towards the light. “Maybe.”

“Where the kriff are we?” Rex asked, coming up behind them. Kallus followed, looking wary.

“Not sure,” Kanan replied.

“Last thing I remember was reaching out to follow that flicker…” Ezra frowned. “Do you think that lead us here?”

”I don’t think ‘lead’ is the right word,” Kallus muttered.

“Neither do I,” Kanan said, then frowned. “But without more information, or a ship, we’re stuck here. Rex, what about that signal, is it still transmitting?”

Rex’s grin was nearly lost in the dust of his beard, but enough still shone through in his voice. “You’re just lucky I carry a scanner in my kit, Kanan, otherwise we’d be kriff out of luck. And then where would we be?” He pulled the scanner from his belt-pouch and frowned. “Hang on.”

“What is it?” Kanan asked.

Rex turned the scanner towards Ezra. “You might be right about that ‘flicker,’ Ezra. I’m picking up that transmission signal loud and clear.”

Ezra glanced at the coordinates on the scanner, then turned to look in the direction they led, his heart sinking. 

“Where is it?” Kanan asked.

Ezra looked at the veil of darkness that hung over most of the sky and draped cloyingly along most of the horizon. “In the dark,” he said, finally. “The signal’s coming from the dark side of the planet.

_Force_ , but he had a bad feeling about this.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks be to my ever patient beta: imaginary_golux

“Anything?” Hera asked, fingers tapping out another sequence on the controls.

“ _Nothing_ ,” Wedge replied, his voice fuzzy with interference. “ _Whatever this thing is, it’s fuzzed the_ Phantom’ _s controls too.”_

Frowning, Hera glanced out the cockpit, but the monolith was still there, rotating slowly, blocking out the stars. 

It was blocking everything else out too. Communications, navigation, and long-range scanners had been down since it arrived. If they didn’t get even _one_ of those systems back… Hera stifled the thought. _Kanan is fine_ , she reminded herself. _He has Ezra, Rex, and even_ Kallus _with him. He’s fine. They’re all fine._

“ _Hera?”_ Zeb’s voice was tinny in the cockpit’s speakers. The dorsal gun turret always distorted the voice of whoever was using it, and normally it was soothing, a patch of normalcy in the heat of battle. But in a cold, empty star system, with nothing but a lonely sun and an inexplicable monolith for company, Hera had the fleeting wish for an in-ship comm system that let her crew sound like themselves, instead of pale, metallic imitations.

“Keep looking, Wedge,” she said, pushing aside… everything. “I want to see if there might be a way inside that thing. Maybe Kanan and the others went in there.” She switched to in-ship comms. “Zeb, how are we looking?”

“ _Nothing yet,”_ he replied, his voice rumbling with misgiving. “ _But I don’t like this._ ”

“Neither do I, but until we figure out where Kanan and the others went, we’re stuck.”

Chopper blatted a query and Hera resisted the urge to rub her temples, right below where her pilot’s goggles always started pinching after too long. 

“No, Chopper, I don’t think they just ‘decided to leave.’ There was something in the Force that Kanan and Ezra were–”

“ _Hera! We’ve got incoming!”_ Zeb’s voice rang in the cockpit speakers like a cracked bell and Hera spun back around to look out the viewport just in time for two Star Destroyers to settle out of hyperspace like pouncing gutkurrs. 

A button on the comm unit flashed red three times in quick succession – the signal for an incoming, unknown comm signal – and Hera cursed under her breath before slapping the controls to open a signal to the _Phantom II_.

“Wedge, get back here quick,” she said as the comm unit flashed again. “I don’t want them to open fire while you’re docking.”

“ _On my way._ ”

The comm unit had changed to a steady red glow, glaring at the rest of the cockpit like a beady eye, and Hera made sure the _Ghost_ ’s ID transponder was set to one of their other aliases before hitting the control to open a channel.

“ _Unidentified freighter, this is the Star Destroyer_ Supremacy, _please state your ship’s name, captain’s name, ship ID, and business in this area. Failure to comply will result in immediate defensive action._ ”

Hera barely kept herself from laughing. _A polite Imperial,_ she mused. _You don’t see that every day, nor do you see one who doesn’t recognize the Ghost._ “I hear ya, _Supremacy_ ,” she said in the closest approximation of a Tatooine accent she could manage. “Captain Tarlan speakin’, and my ship’s name is _Krayt_ , like the dragon, ‘cept she’s really just a crate that flies–”

“ _State your ship ID and business,_ _Captain Tarlan, or we will be forced to take immediate action._ ”

”Righ’. Ship ID is 257-Leth-Wesk-58, an’ we’re salvagers, see? Got a tip ‘bout some good salvage out here, and I–”

“ _Under Imperial Statute 3349-Esk, ‘salvage,’ ‘trash collection,’ and all forms of material management must be accompanied by an Imperial Salvage license. Unlicensed parties are subject to–_ ”

The connection went dead, and Hera paused with one hand over the shield controls.

“Zeb, any movement?”

“ _None yet. But those Star Destroyers have to have at least two battalions worth of TIE fighters each._ _If they–_ ”

“I know, Zeb.” She glanced at the controls, noting with relief that Wedge had the _Phantom II_ in position. Even if every TIE fighter in those Star Destroyers were launched now, the _Phantom_ would be docked long before they were in range.

The connection flickered to life again, crackling with eerie silence before a low, sibilant voice rattled through the speakers.

“ _Hello, Captain Syndulla._ ”

Hera’s blood froze, her heartbeat rushing in her ears at the sound of her name in that cold voice. Over the ship’s comms – and through the echoes in the corridor – she could hear Zeb cursing and Chopper, right behind her, throwing out growling trills in the rudest language she’d heard him use since she found him on Ryloth…

“Who is this?” she asked, all trace of the Tatooine accent gone.

“ _You do not know me, Captain Syndulla, but you will. Your Jedi lover killed my brothers and sister. And you… you thought us gone, defeated, by a jumped-up padawan learner and his feral brat. Now you will learn, Captain Syndulla, what insects like you always learn._

_The Inquisition never forgets.”_

The line cut out right as Zeb’s yell from the dorsal gun sent her hand slamming on the shield activation controls. Grimacing, she strapped herself in and watched as a flood of TIE fighters broke from the Star Destroyers’ hangars.

Except… half of the TIEs broke off, turning to circle around a shuttle which rose from the farthest Star Destroyer like a vulture and angled itself towards the monolith, which had begun to glow a dull red along its hemisphere.

Hera gritted her teeth – almost snarling, actually – and shoved the _Ghost_ down, until it was below the plane of engagement, and engaged sublights at maximum. The punch of momentum nearly slammed her head against her seat hard enough to scatter stars – more stars – across her vision, but she tightened her hands on the controls and held on anyways, counting down the seconds.

_Two...Three...Four…_

Just before “five,” Hera cut the sublight engines, engaged the altitude thrusters to slow the _Ghost_ ’s forward momentum, and yanked the nose of the ship up, until the _Ghost_ popped out from between the two Star Destroyers like a cork from a bottle, steadying finally at the same level as the destroyers’ control rooms.

Half of the TIEs were scattered like ants, only just beginning to turn around to follow the _Ghost_ ’s flight. The other half still circled around the shuttle, which had paused in front of one of the monolith’s points, as the red glow along the hemisphere brightened until the edges of the shuttle looked as though they were dipped in blood.

“Wedge, I’m sorry.” Hera tapped the airlock controls, listening for the _clunk_ of the A-wing disengaging. “But I’m dropping your A-wing. We need to move fast and it’ll slow us down.” The sensor array blinked and flickered as it fought the monolith’s dampening field to beep warnings about the Star Destroyers’ targeting systems. “Zeb. Strap in, if the Empire knows a way into that monolith, we’re taking it.”

“ _Are you insane?”_

“Kanan’s down there, Zeb, and so is Ezra and Rex and Kallus. They have no idea that an Inquisitor and an entire Star Destroyer’s complement of TIE fighters are about to come in after them.” She pulled her goggles down over her eyes, making sure the straps sat right and that her chin strap was cinched tight. “We’re going in. Hang on.”

A console in the back of the cockpit screamed a warning as Hera moved the _Ghost_ forward, the engines shuddering as they scraped the edge of a tractor beam. Without their TIEs, the Star Destroyers would be next to useless the closer Hera got to the shuttle, so she leaned forward on the controls, accelerating straight towards the monolith.

She was almost a third of the way there when the TIEs surrounding the shuttle stopped circling their charge and turned towards the _Ghost_. Their movements were militarily precise – quick and clean and indicative of probably some of the best pilots that the Empire had to offer. 

If she had learned anything in her years of being with the Rebellion, it was that while the Empire might have some of the best technical pilots in the galaxy – excellent for flying in formation and listening to orders – they didn’t tend to have a large number of pilots who actually felt the need to fly in their blood and bones. And without those pilots… 

Hera grinned, and shoved the _Ghost_ into a corkscrewing dive, sliding under the first wave of TIEs that threw themselves at her. The inside of the _Ghost_ was silent save for the sound of her own breathing, and Zeb’s whoops as he picked off TIEs from the dorsal turret, but Hera fancied she could hear the TIEs’ engines screaming to catch up, to beat her, and then screaming even more when they couldn’t.

The red glow of the monolith was even stronger now, and Hera kept it in the corner of her eye at all times as she danced her way through the TIE battalion, leaving battered and sparking scraps of TIE fighters in her wake. She had just looped over two TIE fighters when she saw the shuttle moving forward and the two great halves of the monolith sliding opposite of each other, leaving a triangular hole that shone bright enough to rival the nearby sun. 

Cutting the engines for just a moment, she tumbled past another group of TIE fighters, scattering them like grain on a brisk wind, then angled the nose of the _Ghost_ to follow the Imperial shuttle, sliding in close enough to see how well the Imperial engineers treated their engines before the light rose up, around, and _through_ them, searing her bones and turning everything she saw to red fire.

/// \\\\\ /// \\\\\ /// \\\\\

They saw the broken spire on the second day, or what passed for a ‘second day’ in the unending twilight of the dark side of the planet. The streaks of light on the horizon had all but faded by the end of the first day as they traversed deeper into the Dark, leaving behind only the fitful glow of the skeletal, crystalline “trees” that dotted the landscape at odd intervals.

As they got closer, the spire still towered over the landscape, a fathomless shadow against an already starless sky. Whatever it was, Ezra’s skin crawled even just looking at it, a sensation that wasn’t helped by the even present feeling of _other_ that seemed to ooze from the very air, leaving it thick and cloying in his lungs. 

Sometimes he could even see Kallus and Rex rubbing their arms and shivering as they huddled as close as they dared for Kanan and Ezra’s lightsabers, which had been active as soon as they’d escaped from the arena.

Not that the lightsabers did much good. Each kilometer they walked closer to the spire and the source of Rex’s transmission, the dimmer the lightsabers became, until Ezra was worried that they would fade completely, leaving them stranded in the swelling, greasy taint of the Dark Side.

Kanan’s hand landed on Ezra’s shoulder, knocking him out of his ruminations and forcing a gasp from his chest. Startled, he glanced upwards at his teacher, but Kanan only nodded at Ezra’s lightsaber, which had begun to flicker.

“Concentrate, Ezra,” Kanan said, his hand squeezing once. “Center yourself.” He turned to Rex. “How much further?”

Rex was sweating even as his breath fogged in front of his mouth, but his voice was steady, and as he held up the scanner, the light from its screen glowed like a beacon. “It shouldn’t be too far. But it’s definitely in that tower.”

Kanan looked up at the tower, looming over their head like a bad dream, and his lips compressed into a thin line. “Then we move fast. Stick together, watch out for traps, and… try to stay focused. The Dark Side is strong here. It will trick us if we let it.”

“Is that what this is?” Kallus muttered, somehow looking worse than Rex. “Thought the Force couldn’t affect us like this.”

“Normally I’d agree with you,” Kanan said, frowning. “But here it’s… different.”

Ezra shivered at his tone, flinching when his lightsaber flickered with him. But he took as deep a breath as he could manage, fighting through the burn of the frigid air around him, and his lightsaber stabilized, settling back into a steady, green glow.

By the time they reached the spire, and the rib-cage-like battlements that ringed the base of it, their lightsabers were but pale imitations of their usual blazing light, barely lighting anything beyond a small ring around Ezra and Kanan’s feet. Everything else lay in shadow.

Except… 

Ezra glanced up at the walls surrounding the spire. Despite the utter blackness immediately surrounding them, the battlements were somehow lit enough to see the sickening swoops and curves of the walls, though much of it was still in shadow. 

They were lit enough that Ezra could clearly see the head of a figure, hooded and cloaked, turn and vanish from the top of the wall.

“Uh, Kanan,” he said, his grip tightening on his lightsaber. “I don’t think we’re alone.”

Kanan’s head twitched in his direction, then back towards the wall before pausing with such concentration that Ezra could feel the prickle of Kanan’s mental searches against his own shields.

‘Alright,” Kanan said. “Stay close everyone. Rex, are we still going in?”

Rex shook the tracker, which flickered brightly enough to see the coordinates before dying completely. “Looks like it,” he said unhappily.

“Then we pair up. Ezra, you’re with Rex. Kallus, with me. Watch out for traps.”

Ezra leaned to the side to allow Kallus to step around him, then started forward, hearing Rex do the same. To his surprise, once inside the battlements, the darkness was _not_ absolute. Instead, a sickly red glow suffused everything, leaving Ezra’s stomach churning and his head spinning with unease. 

But he could see. Worse, he could _hear_ , and once he realized that, the voices started.

The first was a muttering that almost sounded like Rex, except… younger somehow, that kept muttering “good soldiers follow orders, good soldiers follow orders,” until the mantra sounded less like words and more like a drumbeat, calling soldiers to war. 

Then came the deluge.

“–soldiers follow orders. Good soldiers follow orders. Good–”

“–just left us here! How are we supposed to fight, to _survive_ if we can’t–”

“–walker. What are we going to do?”

“–everywhere. They’re everywhere. Run!”

“–just two more days, I promise. I’ll come back–”

“–you can’t leave me. You _can’t_. You–” 

“–see our son again. I know we will–”

Screams, overlaid by blaster fire and the rattling _thump_ of mortar shells, mixed with the moans of the sick and dying. Ezra could hear the sickening slap of beatings meted out against defenseless innocents, and once, even the sharp crack of a whip, followed by the wailings of grief and anguish.

He hadn’t even realized he’d stopped moving until Rex’s hand shifted to the back of his neck, fitting Ezra’s head into Rex’s shoulder as he wept silently, hot and bitter tears streaming down his face for all the people he could not save.

“–breathe, Ezra. Breathe!” Rex was saying, before yelling something incomprehensible down the corridor. “You’ve got to remember to breathe.”

“Ezra it’s not _real,_ ” Kanan shouted, his words blurry and indistinct, as if from far away. “It’s memories! Not you!”

Then a hand landed on Ezra’s back, right beside Rex’s, and suddenly he could breathe again; great, gasping breaths as the memories scuttled away like spider droids.

“What _was_ that?” he asked.

Kanan’s face twisted. “Emotional minefield. It can happen sometimes in a place if a lot of people have died too quickly. The Dark Side makes them stronger.”

Ezra glanced around at the empty corridor, spotless save for the thick film of dust and the eerie red glow of the walls. “But who died here?”

“This place is a nexus of the Force, seeped in the Dark Side.” Kanan shook his head. “Nobody might have _needed_ to die here to wreak this kind of havoc.

“Come on. We need to keep moving.”

So they walked on, circling closer and closer to the coordinates Rex’s scanner had fixed on. Thankfully, Ezra didn’t get pulled under again, but he could feel it now, where the Force was probing at his defenses, trying to find a way in. More than once, either Rex, Kanan, or even Kallus would flinch and twist around, either eyes searching the darkness for something they thought they could see… or not.

There were more mundane traps as well, pits of spikes and laser grids and once, a hole that opened up directly under Kallus that took both Kanan _and_ Ezra’s reflexes and strength to lift him back out. The closer they got to the center, the more frequent the traps, and more the red glow of the walls and floor intensified, until everything seemed everything seemed awash in a film of blood. At least until they reached a door, dark as the night outside, that sat halfway down the hallway like a squat, black toad, sucking in all the heat and light of the interior hallways until it seemed as if the door was reaching out to pull in anything that could feed it power.

Kanan stepped towards it, lightsaber first, but before he could touch it, it slid open, revealing a wide open courtyard… with a tree in it.

The tree was almost as tall as the courtyard walls, and it was situated on a raised planter at the center of the courtyard. Unlike everything else they’d seen thus far, it was _alive_ , its leaves fluttering in a non-existent wind with all the colors of an Alderaanian autumn, and kneeling in front of it was a figure, hooded and cloaked, with their back to the door.

Kanan and Ezra quickly shifted their lightsabers to a guard position, the tips pointed at the figure even as Kallus and Rex spread out to either side, blasters at the ready. But the figure didn’t react, not even when Kanan and Ezra moved closer and called out.

“Um, hello?”

“Hello Ezra Bridger,” said a voice from _behind_ them.

The Force trembled, shuddering like a cracked bell, and Ezra spun around to face where they’d come. In the doorway stood the first few members of three squads of stormtroopers, flanking another figure all done up in black armor that looked familiar and not…

“Kanan Jarrus,” said the figure, her cloak swaying oddly. “Or should I say Caleb Dumé?”

Kanan’s hand tightened on his lightsaber, but he said nothing.

“No matter,” the figure grinned. “I don’t need your name to prove to my lord Vader you’re dead.” 

With one black-gloved hand, she reached up and tore off her hood, leaving her cloak to puddle on the floor and revealing unnaturally long lekku, which twined and hissed against each other in constant, shifting motion.

_She’s a Nautolan_ , Ezra realized, his eyes following the lines of the Inquisitor’s lekku until they ended abruptly in cybernetic enhancements that gleamed like blades. _And an Inquisitor too. Oh this isn’t going to go well._

“So which one are you?” Kanan asked conversationally, moving until he could ease into place on Ezra’s left side. ”Ninth Sister? Tenth? Were the other ones too busy?”

The Inquisitor growled, the ends of her lekku sparking as the metal tip clashed. “I am your _death_ , Jedi. That is the only name you require.”

“Oh really?” Kanan smiled, though it looked odd beneath the shadow of the mask. “Here I thought you’d be difficult.”

Ezra shifted, the skin between his shoulders itching the way it always did before a fight. _What is Kanan playing at?_

The stormtroopers that had come in behind the Inquisitor had spread out to either side, though Rex and Kallus’ steady draw of their blasters prevented the troopers from moving in to flank them. At the Inquisitor’s enraged hiss, however, Ezra watched their helmets twitch out of the corner of his eye and realized exactly what Kanan was trying to do.

So Ezra unclipped his lightsaber from his belt and twirled it idly around his hand. “Yeah, I mean, you guys really aren’t hard to deal with.”

The Force shuddered under the weight of the Inquisitor’s anger, the Dark Side thickening enough around Kanan and Ezra that Ezra nearly choked on it. But he kept the crooked grin pasted to the side of his mouth, and even felt it growing wider as the Inquisitor’s lekku thrashed like a nest of angry snakes.

The Dark Side seethed and roiled in response, and the Inquisitor’s lightsaber snapped off her hilt and into her gloved palm, igniting in a blaze of blood-red in almost the same instant. Her lightsaber met Kanan’s almost before Ezra could react, and he danced two steps back, his saber up at guard. But the Inquisitor ignored him completely, focused instead on Kanan, though Ezra noticed her blade-ended lekku still twitched in his direction.

“Those siblings of mine were _weak_ ,” she hissed, her lightsaber almost spitting sparks where it met Kanan’s in her anger. “Weak and foolish. You will not find me so easily duped.”

“Oh really?” Kanan said, and Ezra could almost _hear_ the raised eyebrow. “Then why did you follow us?”

“What?” The Inquisitor’s eyes widened and she jerked away, backflipping out of Kanan’s reach and casting her lekku out around her until the metal tips scraped across the stormtroopers’ armor – much to their consternation (Ezra even saw a few almost flinch away but stay themselves at the last moment). But when there was no secret attack, or even a reaction from Ezra and the others to her movement, she bared her fang-like teeth and _snarled_ , a wave of emotion that rumbled through the Dark Side and set the stones underfoot to shivering.

Kanan’s thoughts reached out to bolster Ezra’s against the surge in the Force, and Ezra sent back a wave of thanks before shifting position so that he was right behind Kanan’s right shoulder.

“We’ll take her together,” Kanan murmured, and Ezra grinned. 

“Funny, I was going to say that.”

They had one breath, then Ezra moved low and Kanan came in high, and green and blue met scarlet in a crash of light and sound. .

Ezra had a vague impression of Rex and Kallus retreating to a pile of rubble just to the right of the planter with the tree, drawing the stormtroopers’ fire with them, and of the figure kneeling in said planter not moving in the slightest, before he had to turn his focus back to the Inquisitor.

She was _fast,_ faster than the other Inquisitors had been, and he nearly earned himself a few more scars on his face before Kanan went for her kneecaps and the Inquisitor had to draw back. Her lightsaber was only half the danger however, Ezra realized as he had to duck to avoid a swipe from her bladed lekku. She kept them circling around her constantly, guiding them with little touches of the Force that felt like spots of black ice to Ezra’s senses.

Then one of the metal whips tangled with Ezra’s lightsaber, snaring the blade and nearly snaking down to where Ezra’s fingers were pressed against the hilt…

Kanan’s saber snapped out, severing a swath of the Inquisitor’s lekku just above the cybernetic attachment point, and the metal tangled around Ezra’s saber went slack as the Inquisitor _screamed_ , her agony pulsating in the Force, making the shadows swell like leeches.

“Her cybernetics have a cortosis weave!” Kanan shouted – Ezra got a mental impression of lightsabers flickering and going out when faced with a blank expanse of dark metal – before turning back and hammering _hard_ at the Inquisitor’s defenses, his blue blade a blur of light, bright even in the all-consuming darkness.

Ezra ducked a stray shot from the stormtroopers – which crashed against a nearby wall, leaving a charred blast mark – and leapt back into the fray, though he was careful now to not let his lightsaber get too caught up in defending against the cybernetics that flickered around him like metal whip-snakes.

Even with the blood that trailed down her left shoulder and side, and the rictus of pain that froze her face in a snarl, the Inquisitor was – if possible – even _faster_. Ezra could barely track her lightsaber now, instead having to rely on the whispers in the Force – faint though they were – to guide his blade, and even those were beginning to fail as the Inquisitor’s pain grew and grew, pressing against Ezra’s senses like an inexorable tide until even the barest flicker of the Light Side grew harder and harder to find.

A silver flicker caught the corner of his eye – no, nearly caught his _eye_ in a shivering line of hot agony that twisted curved up along his cheek towards his eyelid – but then Kanan’s lightsaber slashed out again, except this time he’d over extended himself and another metal-ended lekku struck Kanan’s face across his mask, sending the metal clattering to the stone courtyard and leaving Kanan’s milky-white eyes _exposed_ to the blood-red of the lightsaber coming towards him. Ezra jerked back, and then forwards, _desperate_ – _no, Kanan, not again, **not again** –_

The red blade stopped only inches from Kanan’s face, held in place by the cool, white gleam of another lightsaber blade. Shocked, the Inquisitor glanced up, red-gold eyes meeting the hooded gaze of the figure from beneath the tree. Whatever she saw there, Ezra couldn’t tell, but it forced the Inquisitor back, her blade held in a close guard and her stance low and hunched, like an anooba guarding a carcass.

The hooded figure stepped over Kanan, the hem of their robes making no sound despite the gravel and sand that littered the courtyard. Their saber was held horizontally in front of them, and with its white blade, the sight was so familiar that Ezra felt the briefest sting of tears and grief and the flickering memory of another place steeped in the Dark Side, where they’d almost lost _everything_ –

With every step the figure took, the Inquisitor moved backward, until the ends of her lekku were scraping against the ruined stone walls of the courtyard. Two more steps, and the Inquisitor _bolted_ , her lekku slamming into the wall and propelling her up and out of the courtyard, as the overwhelming weight of her presence dropped abruptly.

The stormtroopers lay in crumpled white heaps around the courtyard, felled by what looked like a combination of blaster fire and even a few saber burns. But it meant that Rex and Kallus could move out of their cover, and Kallus took a few steps out of his way to grab Kanan’s mask before walking over to where Ezra stood and handing the mask over to its owner.

“Ezra?” Kanan asked, turning his head in Ezra’s direction. “You alright?”

Ezra winced at the hot stickiness of blood that coated his cheek and lips, and then winced again as the movement jarred the scalpel thin cut along his cheekbone. “I’ll need some bacta later, but I’m fine.”

“Good,” he turned back towards the figure, now facing them, with their face still shadowed by the hood. “...Thanks for the help.”

The figure nodded, and Ezra frowned. It was almost as if every second he stared at them, more features appeared to be noticed. First it was the white lightsaber – now hanging from the belt, right next to another one with an oddly familiar hilt… Then it was the montrals, their sharp points dulled by the draping hood, followed by the long blue and white lekku that nearly brushed the ground… wait.

The figure pushed their hood back, revealing a Togruta with eerily familiar markings and warm blue eyes. 

“Ahsoka,” Ezra breathed, hope leaping into his throat to choke him.

Except it _wasn’t_ Ahsoka. The lekku were too long, the blue and white stripes not jagged enough, and though the montrals were elegant, they didn’t sweep to the same curve and point that Ezra remembered her having. Her markings were different too, simpler somehow, though he could see echoes of his friend in her face.

“ _Commander_ ,” Rex gasped, his voice thick with grief, and the person who was not Ahsoka smiled, her own grief lending a gleaming edge to her eyes that spoke of years passed and memories lost.

“I’m not her, Rex,” she said gently. “I’m sorry.”

Rex bowed his head, his grief settling around him like a gentle morning fog, and not-Ahsoka turned to Kanan.

“Kanan Jarrus,” she said. “Well met. I would say ‘again,’ but my knowledge of you is… insubstantial at best.”

“Are you the one who brought us here?” Kanan asked, settling his mask on his face. 

“Yes and no,” not-Ahsoka replied. “I’ve not the strength to reach beyond the borders of this place, and our paths should not have crossed in this manner.” Her mouth twisted into a rueful smile. “Except they have.”

She glanced around at the crumpled bodies of the stormtroopers, then finally at the tree that stood shivering in an intangible breeze. “But perhaps some good may yet come of it,” she murmured, and crossed over to the tree. 

None of them stopped her, though Rex’s gaze followed her movements like a man starved. 

She placed her hand against the tree, orange skin against the gray trunk, and bowed her head. Around her the Force stirred, Dark Side and Light, until it seemed that the point where her hand touched the tree was _glowing_ with a light that was cold and warm at the same time.

Slowly, the light grew, until it was blinding enough that Ezra had to shield his eyes with his hand – though he noticed at Rex and Kallus seemed to be fine. Even Kanan flinched minutely, but before he could do more than twitch, the light was gone, and not-Ahsoka stepped back from the tree. 

She seemed… _less_ somehow, and Ezra realized with a start that he could see the branches of the tree _through_ her montrals, like a fading ghost. But before he could do more than take a faltering step forward, her form solidified, and she turned back to them with a grim determination.

Around her, the shadows were… lighter, weakened by the sudden brightness of the tree. The vice grip of the Dark Side eased from Ezra’s chest, and even the cut on his cheek hurt less.

“We need to move quickly,” she said motioning to the stormtrooper’s abandoned speeders. “There are many thing that I… I don’t have time to explain. Nor do I think I am able to. Safe to say, your being here has been for the good, but only if you leave this place as fast as you can.”

“We have no ship,” Kallus told her, his brows furrowed in wary suspicion. “How are we going to get out of here?”

But not-Ahsoka only smiled. “Then I will lead you to one.”


	4. Chapter 4

The shuddering of the _Ghost_ woke Hera, along with Chopper’s aggrieved screaming as the ship pitched first to one side, then the other as the astromech fought to bring the engines back online. Adrenaline propelled her off the floor and into her seat, her hands grabbing the controls just in time to yank the _Ghost_ away from the crumbled peak of a building – a monastery? – that rose up from the ground like a mountain, grey and resolute.

But despite her efforts – as quick as they were – the back end of the _Ghost_ still clipped the edge of the building and the ship shuddered into a tailspin, sending them hurtling towards a high cliff touched by the barest edges of a golden-red sunset

“Chopper!” Hera yelled. “Get the altitude thrusters online! We need to get her nose above that cliff before we’re too flat to care!”

Chopper blatted at her, but the _Ghost_ rumbled as the altitude thrusters sputtered online and the nose of the ship slowly, _slowly_ began to rise.

The cliff was coming up too fast.

“Chopper!”

Chopper squawked the rudest noise Hera had ever heard from him and the engines _roared_ to life, pushing the ship up the bare half-meter they needed to clear the edge of the cliff.

“Brace yourselves!” Hera yelled, not sure who was awake save for Chopper and herself, and angled the ship’s nose back down, wincing as the bottom of the _Ghost_ scraped along the top of the cliff, and the ship came to a spiraling halt.

They’d crashed.

“This is the _second_ time I’ve woken up with my ship in trouble today,” Hera muttered, wincing as her muscles protested their involvement with her. “I’m getting _tired_ of it.”

“Hera?” Zeb’s voice echoed from down the corridor.

“Here!” she shouted back, then stared sadly at her smoking pilot’s console. “Well, kriff.”

With a couple of annoyed burbles, Chopper unwedged himself from under the Navigation console and shook his manipulator arm at her.

“Yes, I know we’ve crashed,” she replied to his agitated grumbling. “See if you can get the scanners online. We need to find Kanan and the others’ locations.”

“That’s going to be hard to do,” Zeb said, and Hera turned to look at him. Blood trickled from a cut above his eye, turning the fine, purple fur of his face to a dull, spiky maroon, but his eyes were clear and he stood without hunching over an injury. “Even if we find Kanan, or the others, how are we going to get them?”

“We’ll take the _Phantom_ –”

There was a crash in the corridor, followed by the acrid smell of wires burning, and Hera winced. “Wedge?”

“I’m okay!” came the call down the corridor.

A few minutes later, Wedge limped into the cockpit, his face apologetic. “Sorry, Hera, but I don’t think the _Phantom_ ’s flying either. Half the systems are offline. The rest…”

There was a loud _crack_ from the direction of the _Phantom_ and everyone winced, again.

Chopper squawked.

“What do you mean you can’t find Kanan?” Hera turned to her controls, pulling up the limited scanning power Chopper had managed to regain. But nothing showed up on the scans, no matter what frequency she looked for. “Damnit. Alright, try to get the ship up and running again, Chop. We’ll go out and look for them.”

“How?” Zeb asked, but subsided when Hera turned and gave him a _look_. “Alright, alright.”

“I saw a building before we, uh… landed,” Wedge said. “Not the one we clipped, but another one. It looked pretty close. Maybe there will be something there?”

Hera’s lips thinned as she waved acrid smoke away from her face. “It’s worth a shot. Come on, we need to see which of the bikes made it.”

Only Kanan’s and Ezra’s bikes were in any shape to ride, so Hera loaded herself and Wedge on Kanan’s and left Ezra’s to Zeb.

“Chopper,” she said into the radio. “Keep us updated. If they come back, we–”

Chopper’s trills cut her off, and she suppressed a smile that faded quickly as she looked at the surrounding landscape.

“Okay, Wedge. Where did you say that building was?”

The building was in the direction of the setting sun, and was high enough up that Hera could see the golden gleam of the rooftops even from the _Ghost_ , situated as it was on the edge of a cliff with a few hundred oddly skeletal trees in the way. But once within the trees, only the glow of the horizon and the angle of the ground was enough to tell her where to go.

The trees were… odd. Looking at them straight on seemed only to reveal ordinary, if sparsely foliaged, trees; but if she looked at them out of the corner of her eye, Hera swore she could see the branches and trunk of the trees glowing like a radioactive skeleton. Whatever was going on, it left flickers at the edge of her vision and the unsettling urge of something watching them between her shoulderblades. But the speeder-bikes were limited in how fast they could move over the uneven terrain, and Hera was unwilling to push them too much.

...Just in case.

Wedge had just come down from climbing a tree to get their position – Hera pretended not to notice him wiping his palms convulsively on his flight-suit – when a pattering of blaster-fire rattled over their heads. 

“Karabast!” Zeb snarled, and angled his bo-rifle towards the left, where the gleam of stormtrooper armor peeked out from between the trees, the angry, black lines of the rifles nearly hidden in the shadows. “Hera, we need to move!”

“That way, that way!” Wedge shouted by her ear as he hopped back on the speeder-bike, pointing just right of the direction they’d originally been going. The new direction took them at an angle up the slope, but Hera noted a few places where they could drop some explosives to slow their pursuers down.

“Zeb! On me!” she shouted, and gunned the engines. The bike kicked up gravel and dirt with a low growl, but got up to speed quickly, nearly throwing Hera and Wedge off their seats as it shot up the slope.

Hera chanced a glance behind, but Zeb was following easily, his bo-rifle still angled towards the stormtroopers. They looked a bit surprised – or as surprised as anyone in full armor could look – and it took them precious minutes to give up their cover and scramble back to the Imperial-issue speeder-bikes Hera could see waiting a few meters behind them.

“Looks like it’s going to be a race!” Zeb laughed.

“Then let’s make sure we win!” Hera shouted back over the roar of the oncoming wind. “Wedge, hold on.”

“Got it!”

Thankfully the Imperials were too focused with catching up and dodging the strange flora of the planet to worry about shooting at them, much. But after a shot nearly grazed one of her lekku, Hera threw a glance in Zeb’s direction.

“Zeb! Does Ezra keep any grenades on that bike?”

Zeb shook his head, but he was grinning anyways. “No, but I do!”

The blasts rattled the ground behind them as they sped onwards, and the next glance that Hera chanced backwards showed a tumbled heap of speeder-bikes and stormtrooper armor, swarming with the remaining troopers as they worked to either free their injured comrades or see if the speeder-bikes survived. So Hera opened the throttle a bit more, and their little pair of speeder-bikes pulled ahead, hurtling through the forest. 

The forest opened up before they got to the compound, leaving a wide open grassy plain that backed onto enormous white, stone walls, with a large circular gate. The gate was mostly blocked by a great rondel of stone, sunk partially into the earth behind the wall. It was obviously meant to close, though Hera could not see any mechanism that would allow it, nor people who would be inclined to close such a door. Still… She pulled the speeder to a halt and to her left, Zeb did the same.

“Go.” She nudged Wedge and pointed at the stone, which had a sliver of space between it and the edges of the gate. Hopefully it would be enough. “Go, go!”

The screams of the stormtroopers’ speeder bikes echoed through the forest behind them, and Hera’s shoulders itched at the sound as she watched Zeb slide underneath the stone. It wouldn’t do to hurry him, she knew – there was a tense moment as his shoulders almost got stuck – but as the stormtroopers sped ever closer, Hera could feel her lekku twitch with anxiety. Then Zeb was through, and she followed after, her slimmer frame able to wiggle through the gap just as the stormtroopers’ speeder bikes reached the clearing.

Once inside… Hera could feel herself _breathing_ , and it felt like the clearest, deepest breath she’d taken in months, no, _years_. Zeb and Wedge were doing the same, their chests heaving as a sudden peace just sank into their bones.

“Okay,” Zeb said, pulling his bo-rifle forwards, though his hand was lax on the trigger. “What is this place?”

“ _Kriff_.” Wedge’s face was slack with wonder. “I haven’t felt like this since visiting my ama.”

“Welcome,” said a voice from behind them, and Hera whirled around.

Or… tried to, anyways. 

The woman who had spoken smiled at them. “Peace. No harm will come to you here.”

“What is this place?” Hera asked, frowning when her hand didn’t seem to want to pull out her blaster.

“The House of the Daughter,” the woman replied, her face flickering between that of an older woman with kind, weathered eyes and a younger, with delicate, oddly familiar features. “This is a house of peace, and of healing. Your enemies will not follow you here. You may rest.”

“What if we don’t want to?” Zeb grumbled.

The woman smiled again, amusement flowing from her like water. “That is also your prerogative. Still, you are safe here.”

Hera let her hand relax. “Where exactly is here?”

The woman made a motion for them to follow and began heading towards one of the nearby buildings. “You are on Mortis, a nexus of the Force. The House of the Daughter is one of three nodes of the place. A nexus within a nexus, if you will.”

“Who’s the Daughter?” Wedge asked.

A flash of sorrow passed over the woman’s face, like a gentle wave of spring rain. “The Daughter was an avatar of the Force, a wielder of Light. But she passed some time ago, and we are all that remain.”

Zeb shifted, suspicious – though he was still more relaxed than Hera had seen him in a while. “We?”

The woman nodded. “As I said, this House is a place of healing. There are many who have passed though these walls before moving on.”

“Where are they now?”

“They are beyond your sight, I’m afraid.Their paths are not yours to walk.” The woman stopped at one of the buildings, tall and rounded like the others, with pale green stone that seemed to glow in the light of the setting sun. With a wave of her hand, the door opened, revealing a simply designed interior, with comfortable carpets and soft pillows to sit on. “Here is where you may rest until you wish to leave.”

Hera turned to thank her, but the woman had vanished.

“I don’t like this,” Zeb said, gingerly settling on one of the cushions, but his tone wasn’t nearly as acerbic as it could be.

Wedge nodded, flopping onto a cushion and stretching like a Tooka. “I agree, this is weird.”

_It is indeed_ , Hera thought, though no matter how much she tried, her suspicion kept slipping from her grasp, leaving behind only a steady calm she rarely felt outside her nights with Kanan. The House…or whatever it was… fairly _breathed_ relaxation and peace and quietude, and despite what Hera knew about staying wary in strange places, she couldn’t help but let the pinched muscles between her shoulderblades relax in spite of herself.

But the worry didn’t quite go away.

“We need to find Kanan,” she said after a moment of comfortable silence, but when she looked down, only Zeb’s rattling snores and Wedge’s sprawled limbs answered her, their faces relaxed in sleep.

She frowned, but it smoothed away almost immediately, replaced with a resigned fondness. “Okay, then I guess I’ll do it myself.”

The door – which had closed without her realizing – opened again at a touch, and Hera stepped back outside, resisting the urge to take a deep breath and just turn her face to the sun. Instead, she rolled her shoulders back and set off determinedly towards one of the larger rotundas, set farther inside the compound. 

As she pressed onwards, echoes of laughter followed her footsteps, and unseen conversations seemed to drift from open windows. But there was no malice to them, nor did they even seem concerned with Hera’s passage. The laughter was that of children playing – though she never saw one – and the conversations were the usual noise of a busy settlement, happy and bustling.

Except Hera never saw another living soul.

A few times, from the corner of her eye, she’d catch glimpses of a cloak fluttering around a corner, or the clunking echoes of bootsteps on stone. Sometimes she’d even pass close enough by a door to hear the conversation beyond as clearly as if she was standing in the same room, but the words were… faded… somehow, and she knew without knowing that the words would be out of reach no matter how long she stayed to listen.

So she pressed on.

The rotunda she was headed for wasn’t built any differently than the others, save for being slightly larger, but the closer Hera got, the more the echoes and conversations died away, leaving only a cool silence that muffled even Hera’s footsteps. Inside the rotunda was a garden, filled with many of the same plants she’d seen on their desperate flight away from the stormtroopers. But where those plants had been sickly and faded, these burst forth in vibrant color, filling the air with delicate perfume that settled the last of Hera’s reservations.

It had been a long time since she was a little girl on Ryloth, with the dry desert air that stung her nostrils and the sun that had scorched her skin even as she welcomed the heat. But what she remembered best was her family’s garden, tucked away in an inner courtyard of her clan home. There, delicate flowers bloomed in diffused sunbeams, their roots drinking from small, burbling fountains that splashed water over rocks before sinking into rich, sandy loam. Hera remembered the feeling of cool stone under her bare feet and sinking her toes into the earth and for one long moment, she could swear that the same sweet smell of the flowers from her childhood drifted on their air, bouncing along with the soft trickle of water over stone.

“I see you’ve found Her garden,” the woman said behind her. “Does it match what you remember?”

“What I…” Hera whirled around. “What do you mean, ‘remember?’ I’ve never been here before.”

“No,” the woman shook her head, “you haven’t. But there was a garden, wasn’t there? Sometime in your past you’ve felt the shadows of leaves and breathed in the scent of flowers.As you remember, so does this garden.”

Hera blinked and turned back to the plants. There _were_ a few flowers that reminded her of Ryloth, now that she was looking (and she was sure they hadn’t been there before). But it was the sound, and the smell, that tugged at her memories the most.

“Okay, what is going on here?” Hera asked, turning again. “What _is_ this place?”

Despite the sharpness of Hera’s word, the woman didn’t look angry, or offended. “This place is as I said it was, a place for healing and for rest.”

“We need to find our friends.” Hera said, gritting her teeth against her body’s wish to relax. “Where are they?”

“Not the soldiers, surely?” the woman asked.

“They’re not our friends!” Hera snapped, then flinched as her voice shattered against the stones and sent the water’s gentle murmuring to stutters. “No. We’re looking for four men. Two of them are Jedi, and the others… Please, they’re very dear to us.”

“Peace, Hera Syndulla.” The woman smiled. “I do not know where your loved ones are. My power does not extend far outside the borders of my Lady’s House.”

Hera inhaled sharply, but the woman raised her hand. “However, once you and yours have rested, I can take you to where they _might_ be. If all goes well, you may see them there.”

“Thank you.”

The woman nodded, her face flickering between the two faces Hera had seen before. “Of course.” She motioned for Hera to proceed her to the doorway and fell in beside her, her hands tucked into her sleeves in much the same way that Hera remembered seeing the Jedi do, when she was a young girl on Ryloth.

“Who are you?” Hera asked. “You have… two faces, somehow, and you knew who I was without asking.”

“I am… a ghost, if you will,” the woman said, her face shifting to that of the older woman Hera had seen. “A memory, or rather, two memories, both strong enough to remain while everything else has faded. As to who I am… I am a caretaker.” Her face shifted to that of the younger woman, still so familiar, though Hera couldn’t place where she’d seen her before. “I watch over the House of the Daughter and allow those who pass through to find the closure they did not have in life.”

“I’ve never heard of this place,” Hera said.

“You wouldn’t have.” the woman smiled. “You are not dead.”

_Dead…_ Hera staggered backwards, her hand finally pulling her blaster out of its holster, but the woman merely raised an eyebrow.

“Peace. I said you would not come to harm here and I meant it. While it is true that the House of the Daughter is a place for many to pass through before returning to the Force, it is not meet for the living to be refused entry.” She nodded at Hera. “Your passage from this place will be towards your friends and your fight. You have my word on it.”

Slowly, Hera returned her blaster to its holster. But she could sense no malice in the woman’s words, nor deceit. “Is that why… Is that why I can hear other people here?”

The woman smiled beatifically. “Can you? That’s wonderful.”

“How?”

The woman stopped at the rotunda Hera had left Zeb and Wedge in, and both of them were snoring enough to almost rattle the green stones. “All that can be seen is not all that is,” she said. “And certain barriers that are insurmountable elsewhere in the galaxy are much thinner here, though they remain closed.” She motioned to the door. “Sleep, Hera Syndulla. Once you and yours have rested, I will take you to the monastery where you may find your friends.”

/// \\\\\ /// \\\\\ /// \\\\\

Hera woke up with the lingering scent of flowers in her nose and the strange sense of dirt under her toes – though they were still encased in her flight boots. She was tempted to think that everything had been a dream, except it wasn’t the roof of her bunk of the _Ghost_ that she saw, but a ceiling of green stone, carefully painted in faint, spiraling designs and in murals of starbirds scattering stardust.

The compound was as empty as always, though Hera could hear the far-off excited chatter of children, and the murmur of amused adults, and despite what she knew – _you’re listening to the dead, Hera_ – she couldn’t help her deep sigh of contentment.

“Karabast,” Zeb grumbled, “How long was I asleep?”

Hera was wondering that too. Despite the pleasant lassitude that said she hadn’t over-slept or under-slept, the sun was still at the same place in the sky. The entire compound had the air of a place that never changed, where time never passed. If it wasn’t for the fact that Kanan and Ezra’s speeder bikes were parked before their rotunda, loaded with what looked like older model – but still serviceable – engine parts, Hera would doubt that anything had changed at all.

So they took the bikes and started towards the gate – which now stood wide open, the great round stone rolled back along the wall. Hera halfway expected for stormtroopers to come out of the trees, their speeder bikes screaming, but they never did. Indeed, the entire trip back to the _Ghost_ , nothing happened. There was no stormtroopers, no blaster-fire in the distance. There was only the silence, and the faint breath of flowers on the wind.

Chopper met them at the base of the _Ghost_ ’sloading platform, grumbling angrily.

Hera blinked. “What do you mean, ‘who’s the weird woman in the cockpit?’”

More grumbling.

Hera left Kanan’s bike where she parked it, and ran up the loading ramp and to the ladder that led to the main corridor, her legs stretching to take two rungs at a time. When she reached the cockpit though, she nearly rocked back on her heels from the force of her relief.

The woman was sitting in the copilot’s seat, wearing (of all things) a Clone Wars-era Naboo pilot jumpsuit, with her hair coiled into a braided bun. At the scuff of Hera’s foot in the doorway, the woman turned around – her face mostly that of the young woman that Hera still found so familiar – and smiled. “I apologize for the surprise, Captain Syndulla, but this was the easiest way to show you to your friends.”

Hera felt Zeb’s warmth looming over her shoulder and could almost _hear_ his frown at the sight of the woman in the copilot’s chair, but aside from a light growl, he said nothing, and turned back to help Wedge with unloading the bikes.

“Thank you,” Hera said. “Your assistance is appreciated.”

With the new parts from the speeder bikes, Chopper's repairs of the _Ghost_ progressed in record time. In fact, the ship’s internal chronometer only listed an hour passing before Chopper beeped an all clear and Hera toggled the controls for the engines.

The woman was silent through most of the flight, save for pointing Hera in the right direction and showing her a good place to put the _Ghost_ down. But after the thump of the landing gear meeting stone rattled through the ship, the woman stopped Hera from following Zeb and Wedge outside with a light touch to Hera’s elbow, and a serious cast to her kind brown eyes.

“Your friends will be here soon,” she said, “and you will likely return to the fight that has dominated all your lives. In this I cannot give advice, because though I am memory, I have never fought the battles you have. But before you go, I would ask you this: How sure are you of what you are doing? Not the outcome, for that is clear enough, but the methods?”

The woman’s eyes glinted orange-red for a moment, and Hera blinked at the reflection of fire in their depth. Another blink, however, and the woman’s eyes were merely brown again.

“Be careful, Hera Syndulla, that in your haste to fight, you do not leave behind what you are fighting for.” With that statement, and ignoring Hera’s indrawn breath, the woman reached into her flightsuit and pulled out a small leather pouch. “Give this to the clone trooper. He will understand.”

Hera’s fingers closed around the pouch, the thin leather crumpling around whatever was inside, and between one blink and the next, the woman faded, leaving behind only the scent of Naboo flowers and the sound of sand scraping over desert rock.

As she stood there, the _Ghost_ trembled, the ground underneath shifting slightly before settling, and Hera swallowed against a suddenly dry throat before stuffing the pouch into her pocket and going outside to wait.

The sun hadn’t moved – _there wasn’t a sun, why did she think there was a sun?_ – but it felt like hours before she finally heard the screaming report of stormtrooper speeders making their way up the mountain towards the monastery. But the figures on them weren’t stormtroopers – weren’t even wearing armor – and Hera nearly sagged against the side of the _Ghost_ when the figures resolved themselves into Kanan and Rex, Ezra and Kallus, sitting two by two on stolen speeders.

Kanan was off the speeder before it even stopped, almost-running towards Hera while Rex parked the speeder with the ease of long practice. Hera was almost-running too, and she stepped into Kanan’s embrace with a sigh of relief that even the House of the Daughter couldn’t pull from her.

“You’re safe,” she breathed into his chest, her fingers clenching tight around where Kanan’s armor should have been if he hadn’t forgotten to put it on.

“Course I am,” Kanan said, with an echo of his old bravado. “Like a little thing like this could hurt me.”

Hera mock-glared up at him, too relieved to make it real. “It had better not.” She turned, then, and pulled Ezra into the hug. “I’m glad you’re safe too, Ezra.”

Ezra’s voice was soft, and the tightness of his arms around her ribs belied some hidden tension she’d have to ask Kanan about later. “Yeah. Me too.”

“Please tell me you have a way off this rock,” Rex said as he came closer.

Kallus’ face was gave. “We’ll need to watch for the Empire. I doubt the Inquisitor would give up so easily.”

“ _Inquisitor?_ Hera asked, alarm sharpening her tone. “You ran into an Inquisitor?”

“It’s alright,” said Ezra. “Ahsoka scared them off…” He trailed off, looking around the courtyard that was empty save for them, their speeders, and the _Ghost_. “She was just here!”

Kanan’s hand fell to Ezra’s shoulder. “Ezra, it’s–”

“No, she was here,” Ezra said to Hera. “I promise! She was kind of weird and didn’t really look right, but–”

“I believe you,” Hera said, though her heart twisted at the look on Ezra and Rex’s faces. “We’ve had some… interesting visitors of our own,” she said to Kanan in an undertone.

Kanan’s grip on her shoulders was tight, but his voice was even. “You’ll have to tell us about them. For now, Empire or not, let’s go home.”

But no cannon fire shot from the diseased and broken trees as the _Ghost_ rose into the air, and when Hera pointed the _Ghost_ towards the coordinates that the woman had given her, nothing came through the split in the sky to rain weapons-fire against their shields.

In fact, there was no one in orbit around Mortis at all. The two star destroyers had vanished, without even a drive-trail wake to play merry-hob with the _Ghost_ ’s sensors. Even the debris from the few TIE fighters that Hera and Zeb had managed to shoot down wasn’t even there. Hera checked the sensors again, just to make sure, but there wasn’t anything out there.

Not even Mortis.

Ezra and Kanan shifted uneasily in their seats before Kanan cleared his throat and nodded at Ezra to punch in coordinates for the hyperspace drive. “Yeah, let’s go home.”

They arrived back at Yavin with much less fuss than Hera had anticipated. She got a few grins from some of the other pilots once the _Ghost_ had landed, and even a “just had to get one last joyride in, huh, Captain?” But there were no MPs waiting to ask why she’d taken her team and gone AWOL, or even a sternly worded message from General Dodonna about the _Ghost_ ’s absence.

There was just… nothing.

Kanan and Ezra disappeared into the Yavin base to meditate, followed by Wedge and Kallus, who disappeared into their respective rooms without much fanfare. Soon, it was only Hera, Zeb, and Rex left on the ship, with Zeb shut away in his own bunk.

“Rex!” Hera called out as she saw Rex start to head down the Ghost’s loading ramp. “Could you wait a moment please?”

She could see surprise in the set of his shoulders, but he waited easily enough, and even smiled slightly as she scrambled down the ladder to join him.

“I was given something that I was told you might want,” she said. “On Mortis.”

The curiosity in his gaze gave way to wariness, but he said nothing to gainsay her, so Hera reached into her flight-suit and pulled out the leather pouch the woman had been given her, before handing it to him.

Rex’s face was puzzled as he took the pouch and picked at the drawstring gathered leather to open it. But once he did, the puzzlement gave way to shock, and he pulled out a strand of gray-green silka beads, with a purple hourglass-shaped bead on one end. The other end was tied to a data-chip that got caught against the leather of the pouch before Rex pulled it free.

“Where did you get this?” He asked, his voice shaking.

The words came to Hera almost without thought.

“From a memory.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks be to my ever patient beta: imaginary_golux


End file.
